Web access to the specimen catalog at the New Brunswick Museum

Journal of Paleontology, Nov 2002 by Miller, Randall F

COLLECTION NEWS

THE NEW Brunswick Museum catalog of paleontological specimens is now available to search on the World Wide Web. For the paleontological community this means that more than 10,800 collection records, comprising about 95 percent of the museum's fossil collection, are accessible online. The New Brunswick Museum science collection is significant as one of the oldest natural science collections in Canada. Holdings include specimens collected by Abraham Gesner prior to 1842 and members of the Steinhammer Club from 1857-1862 (Miller and Buhay, 1988), and collections of the former Natural History Society of New Brunswick, founded in 1862. The collection currently contains about 1,100 type specimens. Older parts of the collection include Cambrian invertebrate fossils and Paleozoic trace fossils (Miller, 1996) from the Maritimes and elsewhere acquired by G. F Matthew (Landing and Miller, 1988) and Carboniferous plants and invertebrates collected by C. E Hartt (Brice, 1994), G. E Matthew, and others. More recent work has added Devonian plants, vertebrates, and invertebrates; Paleozoic trace fossils; and Quaternary vertebrates and invertebrates, mostly from New Brunswick.

The New Brunswick Museum URL is http://www.gnb.ca/0130/. Users should follow the links to "Collections," "Natural Science," and "Click here" to connect to the Natural Sciences Department web site. From there follow the links to various collection databases and other information. Internet access to the New Brunswick Museum natural science collection is made possible by a grant from the New Brunswick Environmental Trust Fund.

The database is running on Inmagic DB/TextWorks, using Inmagic DB/Text WebPublisher to place records on the Internet.

The Internet version of the database will be updated regularly and provides access to limited record information. It does not, for example, include detailed locality or collector information in order to protect the integrity of fossil sites. Password access is required to use the keyword field and to allow users to view expanded record displays. Requests for password access will be considered on a case-by-case basis and can be made to the curator of the collection. A password also provides access to a database of "Type" reference publications for the collection. Visitors can also search a list of Natural Sciences Department publications and link to the New Brunswick Museum library catalog, which includes holdings of the former Natural History Society of New Brunswick.

REFERENCES

BRICE, W R. 1994. Charles Frederic Harm (1840-1878): the early years. Earth Sciences History, 13:160-167.

LANDING, E., AND R. F. MILLER. 1988. Bibliography of George Frederic Matthew, p. 377-380. In E. Landing, G. M. Narbonne, and P. Myrow (eds.), Trace Fossils, Small Shelly Fossils and the Precambrian-Cambrian Boundary. New York State Museum Bulletin, 46.

MILLER, R. E 1996. Location of trace fossils and problematics of George Frederic Matthew from Part W, Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. Journal of Paleontology, 70:169-171.

MILLER, R. F, AND D. N. BUHAY. 1988. The Steinhammer Club; geology and the foundation for a natural history society in New Brunswick. Geoscience Canada, 15:221-226.

ACCEPTED 22 MARCH 2002

RANDALL F MILLER

Steinhammer Palaeontology Laboratory, New Brunswick Museum, Saint John, New Brunswick E2K IES, Canada,